Emotional Eating

Hello!  It's February 1 and I'm officially starting MONTH #2 of my weight loss endeavors.

I have faced some challenges that I would love to share with you all today as well as some of the challenges I am putting forth for myself as I travel this path.

The Birthday Challenge -- I binged on cookies.  What can I say? It's a day to celebrate!

The Emotional Eating Challenge  -- Emotional eating is tricky because it takes on the heads of several different monsters.

STRESS:

When I am stressed, I want sweets. Lots of sweets.  Chocolate.  Over the past 5(ish) days, I've been stressed beyond recognition, hence, craving sweets.  Fortunately, you cannot binge on what you do not have and I have had no chocolate at my disposal.  That being said, I handled the STRESS eating quite well.

MATTERS OF THE HEART:

Another form of emotional eating for me comes when I am troubled by matters of the heart.  When I am sad, heartbroken, confused, conflicted, or even on an emotional high point feeling extra loved, treated very well, love sick....  In these moments, I cannot eat at all.  If I'm crying, I cannot eat.  If I'm on cloud 9, it's hard to eat, but I manage....  but I find myself going for long periods of time without eating a thing.

In the past, I've gone as long as 1-2 months without more than a yogurt a day.  2 years ago, the struggle was so real that after a month without eating and a 45 pound weight loss, I began forcing myself to eat a yogurt each day.  It literally took me an entire day to eat a single yogurt.  Once I had gotten myself there, I began introducing goldfish to my diet -- the cracker, not the animal -- one per day.  Eventually, after about a month, I was able to start eating again.  It was crazy.

This past week, I went 2.5 days without eating.  Matters of the heart hit me like a ton of bricks, I suppose.  I've often joked with my husband that he should break my heart once every few weeks so that I can lose weight!  What a diet plan!  YIKES!!!  No thanks!

ANGER:

When I'm mad, I head for the carbs.  When I'm really angry, I hit the chips, pretzels and my favorite... Cheez-its!  MMMMMMmmmmm....  Angry eating for me is BAD.  Very very bad.

BORDOM:

Bordom eating is a THING!  OMG is it a thing!  That is why I knit!  When I don't know what to do with my hands, I cook things, and subsequently EAT the things.  Sometimes, I just need to do something with my hands to keep me from eating allllll the things!

Emotional eating is real.  There are many emotions it covers and many ways that we emotionally eat.  This impacts the weight loss efforts every single day.  Today, I've had a yogurt and a banana.  That's it, and it's 5:00 PM.  It's my emotions controlling me.  The key to survival is to recognize how these emotions are controlling us and then find a way to make it work out without sabotaging our dieting efforts.

For the record, I only lost 0.4 pounds this past week.  Not good.  I need to get my emotions in check.


Laters everyone!